Slow Motion Bullet
by iq2two
Summary: Formerly called Family. Crossover with Grey's Anatomy, from the episode Physical Attraction... Chemical Reaction, where Stephanie March played the mother of a boy who swallowed magnets. What if that was actually Alex Cabot in witness protection?
1. Chapter 1

_I don't own Law & Order: SVU or Grey's Anatomy. I got the idea for this from the Grey's Anatomy episode, "Physical Attraction, Chemical Reaction," in which Stephanie March played the mother of a boy who was in the hospital because he swallowed magnets in order to get his constantly fighting parents to get a divorce. Since Stephanie March also played Alex Cabot on SVU, who went into witness protection..._

Jane- or Alex, because despite everything, she still thought of herself as Alex- sat in the hospital waiting room across from her husband, Don, trying not to pick a fight with him, or even worse, start crying. Or maybe the fight would be worse, because although by now she was so used to fighting with him over everything, she had not realized what it was doing to their son. He was in surgery now, because he had swallowed magnets in order to convince them to get a divorce. Se was making her son so miserable that he almost killed himself to get his attention. She hated herself for not realizing. She wasn't the kind of person who was this oblivious to her child. This wasn't her. She laughed bitterly to herself. No, it wasn't her. But she wasn't Alex anymore either.

And that was the problem, she knew. Her constant fighting with Don was her fault. When she first met Don, they had immediate chemistry. They had similar interests, similar backgrounds… Don and Jane seemed made for each other. But that was the problem. She wasn't Jane, no matter how hard she tried to be. It was the pressure of trying to be someone she wasn't and keep her real self hidden so far inside that no one- not the Columbians, and not her husband or even her son- could really know her, that was what had made her start fighting with him so much. She realized that now. Maybe if she could tell Don the truth, that she was really Alex Cabot, Special Victims Prosecutor from New York, that her life had been about fighting for justice, that she missed that life, missed everyone who had been part of that life… She didn't like being Jane any more than she'd liked being Emily. The only good thing about this life was her son. And now he was in danger for his life because she had put herself first, not thought of the effect their constant fighting would have on him.

Maybe she should get a divorce. She'd first thought of that almost a year earlier, and she'd almost been at the point of serving Don with divorce papers. But then the agents from the witness protection program had told her that if she exposed herself by getting a divorce, she would have to change her identity again, and she just couldn't leave her son.

Tears began to run down Alex's face. If she divorced Don, she would never see her son again. But by staying in the marriage she had made him so miserable that he was killing himself.

Tears flowing down her face, she looked up at her husband. Don was a good person, really, and he loved their son. Alex knew he was as worried as she was.

And suddenly, she knew what she had to do. What she'd wanted to do when he proposed, and on their wedding, and when their son was born, and so many other times over the years. She looked up at her husband and said, "My name is Alex Cabot…

_I'm not sure whether to have this be a one shot or continue it. I might continue it sometime, or not. Does anyone remember the name of their son?_

_I'd just like to add that I decided I will continue this, at some point. It might be a while, or not, but I have some ideas._

_Anyway, please review._


	2. Chapter 2

_I don't own Law & Order SVU or Grey's Anatomy, or any of the characters in this. I made up the last name, the first names are from the episode of Grey's Anatomy._

Her husband looked at her in confusion. "What?" His expression slowly changed to a sort-of contemptful, patronizing, pity. "Jane, the stress of all this must be getting to you. Your name is Jane Reynolds. I'm your husband, Don Reynolds. We have a son named Brian who is in surgery because he swallowed magnets, which you left in his room, to get our attention so we'd stop fighting and get a divorce."

"The part about you and Brian is true," Jane/Alex replied slowly, still unsure about what she was saying, whether she should be saying it. "But I'm not who you think I am."

"What do you mean?" he demanded, half angry, half confused.

She took a deep, shuddering breath before responding. "Brian's right. We have been fighting a lot. It's my fault, I know it is. We used to be perfect for each other, Jane and Don were perfect for each other, but I'm not Jane and I can't pretend to be any more."

He still didn't get it. Just looked at her in confusion as if he was trying to figure out if she was crazy or it was some kind of metaphor or what the hell she was talking about. It clearly didn't occur to him that her words were the literal truth. After staring at her for who knows how long, he said, "Sweetheart, I really think the stress is getting to you. Maybe you should ask one of the doctors here for a sedative."

Normally she would have picked a fight with him over this, and his patronizing attitude did make her blood boil, but she stayed calm. "Don, I'm- I used to be- a prosecutor, in New York. I worked with the Special Victims Unit- that means I prosecuted sex crimes- rape, child molestation… That's more stress than you can possibly imagine. I can deal with stress!" That hadn't come out the way she'd intended. Maybe she was picking a fight, she realized. She hadn't meant to be so defensive, he hadn't known, there was no way he could have known, and it wasn't his fault.

"What the hell are you saying?" he demanded angrily.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and gather the courage to speak her next words. "I'm in witness protection. My real name is Alex Cabot, I was a prosecutor, the Columbian mob tried to kill me and I had to go into witness protection."

He stared at her. Alex/Jane couldn't tell whether he was going to scream, or get up and leave, or any of a thousand possible reactions. Maybe she should have told him in private, she reflected, where she wouldn't be in immediate danger if he decided to get back at her by broadcasting her secret.

But all he did was say, sadly, "So our whole life was a lie."

That made her feel worse than if he had screamed, or walked away, or blamed her for Brian's injuries again, or probably anything else he could have done. She wanted to deny it, but she wasn't sure that it wasn't true.

"I love Brian," she said finally.

"I know," he said. After a moment, he said, "I know we both do. But that's all I know right now. I'm going to take a walk, I need to be alone for a while." He got up and left.

She reflected in silence for a while, more terrified than she had ever been, even when facing rapists or serial killers or the Columbian mob. Her son's life was in danger. Her life was in danger- the life that she had made for herself as Jane Reynolds, collage artist, wife of Don Reynolds and mother of Brian Reynolds. And quite possibly her physical life, independent from who she was, from any name or story, was in danger. She had told Don her secret, and it could quite possibly get out. Don could feel the need to talk to someone, and her secret would leak out, tear from person to person as the magnets were tearing through her son's body, until a Columbian hit-man showed up and put a bullet in her.

The doctor came in, the intern, Dr. O'Malley, to give her an update on her sons progress. "Your son's surgery is going well so far," was all he said at first.

"What exactly is the damage?" she asked, wanting to know the full story, however bad it might be. Jane might not have wanted to know, at least until it was over, but she was Alex again.

Dr. O'Malley looked unsure about whether to tell him, but she looked at him with her most professional, unrelenting face until he said, "The magnets are at different points in his digestive system, and they're tearing through his organs to get to each other. Dr. Bailey described it as being like a slow motion bullet. She's working on taking them all out before they can do any more damage."

"Thank you," she told him, and he left, leaving her alone with her thoughts again. A slow motion bullet, he'd said, and now she was haunted by the phrase. A slow motion bullet. Her son was being killed- not killed!, she correct herself quickly, horrified, so horrified at the thought, he wasn't being killed, he was going to be okay- but anyway, injured, in surgery because of a magnet turned into a bullet. A slow motion bullet. Like the one that had nearly killed her, that had killed her, really, although that wasn't in slow motion. But it was, she thought. Because the bullet didn't kill her, but it was that bullet that was still killing her now, ripping through her insides like the magnet ripping through her son. Because Alex Cabot had not died then, not literally, and not even when she had become the series of names with no story behind them. She hadn't died, not all the way, but it was as if she was dying, was still dying, slowly. A bullet ripping through her in slow motion, not killing her instantly but a little at a time with every second that she wasn't prosecuting rapists as Alex Cabot, Special Victims Unit Prosecutor.

She had a sudden yearning to be prosecuting someone, to be in a courtroom before a jury, question witnesses, objecting, telling the jury to find some scumbag guilty. But that life was over. She'd felt like that before, often. That was how she'd originally gotten into doing collages- she'd taken some art classes, and soon she started making collages whenever she felt homesick for a courtroom, and she'd gotten good, and when she'd met Don, it seemed almost natural to tell him that she was a collage artist. At first he'd just been a casual acquaintance, and then a casual date, then a casual relationship, then a serious relationship, then her fiancée, then her husband, the father of her child, and by then she should have told him the truth about herself, but it would have been too hard to explain why she hadn't told him before. She had made so many mistakes, she reflected, and prayed that they didn't cost her son too much.

TBC

_Please review. I'm still not quite sure where I'm going with this but I have a couple ideas and it will go somewhere and have some action soon. _

_Also, do the people who are reading this watch Grey's Anatomy? I'm thinking of seriously involving a few of the characters from that but I'm not sure, what do you think?_


	3. This is not a chapter

This is not a chapter. I am just posting this to let you know that there might be a delay on all of my stories. My computer broke, and I got a new one but everything I had written was on my old one. I was almost finished with the next chapter of "Life and Death" and about halfway through the chapter of "Evil", and a few paragraphs of "Slow Motion Bullet", also I had written the last three chapters of "Life and Death" and a chapter near the end of "Evil." Hopefully I will be able to get the stuff off my old comnputer, apparently the motherboard was broken but I can still get the stuff off the hard drive, but it's pretty expensive so I donb't know when I willm since I have pretty much everything else that's important backed up. So I might just rewrite them, I'm not sure. If I don't get thye stuff off my old computer soon I probably will, especially for "Evil," since I hadn't even finished the chapter, but fort "Life and Death" I really don't want to because the chapter I wrote seriously moves the plot on and I had to spend a lot of time working the kinks out to make sure it works and whats going to happen works with it and everything, and I really don't want to have to redo that. But anyway, it could be awhile before I get new chapters up, but it's still possible that I'll be able to update within a few days, I don't really know. So basically I'm posting this so that if it is a while, you know why.


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